Designer Documentary: Notebooks on Cities and Clothes
Photo credit: Nick Night; Yohji Yamamoto A/W 1988-89 Campaign
How did I miss the news that Yohji Yamamoto recently filed for bankruptcy protection? Too much of ‘tha Book, not enough of The Cut these days, I guess. The silver lining to this sad, if not surprising, news is that Yamamoto will continue to design virtually uninterrupted while an investment firm pumps cash into his struggling business.
What an unfortunate segue into Wim Wenders’ Notebooks on Cities and Clothes, a really great movie about Yamamoto, identity, place, and other esoteric micellenany that somehow relate back to fashion. I discovered the film Designer Imposter-style, thanks to Netflix. As in, the red envelope gods spied on my rental queue and pulled a “If you liked Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton, you’ll love…” Only this movie is no shabby second-best a la Primo!; it came out in 1989, long before that digital purple fairy I mentioned was flitting its way around Jacobs’ Parisian workroom. What Notebooks achieves that MJ & LV doesn’t is a deeper level of creative brain-picking, one image maker framing another. Oh, yes, Wenders will go Spinoza on your ass…or something like that. Expect a side of philosophy with footage of Yamamoto’s runway shows, and an equal amount of visual fodder for ogling.
While watching, I was struck by how prescient Yamamoto’s designs were, especially since they were born during a decade of of sometimes-fabulous, sometimes-wretched excess. The man knows women, knows bodies, and sure as hell knows beauty—the lasting, relevant sort that even finnicky fashion types can’t dismiss years later. The only thing really dated about the film is its soundtrack, which is actually quite fabulous: think Terminator score meets that of an ’80s-era porn film.
Watch the trailer for a taste of what to expect. It ranks up there with Unzipped as one of my favorite fashion documentaries ever made.